CEO 2014 Is All About Community

Creating an active, engaged local gaming community isn’t easy, as any fighting game tournament organizer knows. Creativity, passion, and lots of time and money are just the tip of what it takes. One look at these crazy, all-metal championship belts for this year’s Community Effort Orlando (CEO) should confirm that CEO’s founder, Alex Jebailey, knows a little something about all those things.

The champ is here!

While many people outside the fighting game community have heard of Evo, not as many are familiar with CEO, a massive annual fighting game tournament held in Orlando, FL. Unlike Evo, which admirably strives to mimmick the professional sports formula, CEO is a bit more…flavorful. Jebailey, who recently joined newly named Killer Instinct caretakers Iron Galaxy, has a lot of love for the WWE so he goes pretty out of his way to make every tournament feel more like the Wrestlemania of fighting games rather than the Super Bowl.

“It’s all about giving the community what they want, and using the success to give them even more of what they want” said Jebailey, whose own personal finances help make the event happen. Creative funding ideas, and strong sponsorship partners like One Frame Link (who helped make those snazzy belts happen) have helped it reach its full potential though. This year, he’s trying out something new by letting attendees purchase CEO themed t-shirts for specific games online, and using part of the proceeds to fund that game’s prize pool. It’s a creative way to give spectators a chance to support the game they love without having to sign up to compete.

CEO 2014 will run from June 27-29, and will feature Ultra Street Fighter 4, Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, and Killer Instinct to name name but a few. You can register online here.

Vincent Ingenito is IGN's third newest recruit, and third biggest MOBA fan. He also doesn't suck at fighting games. To hear him nerd out about them and other games, follow him on Twitter.